His will say "Here!" at the last trum- | Whose garnered lightnings none could pet's call, The unexpressive man whose life expressed so much. guess, Piling its thunder-heads and muttering Cease!" AN ODE FOR THE FOURTH OF JULY, 1976. I. 1. ENTRANCED I saw a vision in the cloud That loitered dreaming in yon sunset sky, Full of fair shapes, half creatures of the eye, Half chance-evoked by the wind's fantasy In golden mist, an ever-shifting crowd: There, mid unreal forms that came and went In air-spun robes, of evanescent dye, A woman's semblance shone pre-emineut; Not armed like Pallas, not like Hera proud, But, as on household diligence intent, Beside her visionary wheel she bent Like Aretë or Bertha, nor than they Less queenly in her port: about her knee Glad children clustered confident in play: Placid her pose, the calm of energy; And over her broad brow in many a round (That loosened would have gilt her garment's hem), Succinct, as toil prescribes, the hair was wound In lustrous coils, a natural diadem. The cloud changed shape, obsequious to the whim Of some transmuting influence felt in And turned with loftier brow and firmer stride; For in that spectral cloud-work I had seen Her image, bodied forth by love and pride, The fearless, the benign, the mothereyed, The fairer world's toil-consecrated queen. 2. What shape by exile dreamed elates the mind Like hers whose hand, a fortress of the poor, No blood in vengeance spilt, though lawful, stains? Who never turned a suppliant from her door? Whose conquests are the gains of all mankind? To-day her thanks shall fly on every wind, Unstinted, unrebuked, from shore to shore, One love, one hope, and not a doubt behind! Cannon to cannon shall repeat her praise, Banner to banner flap it forth in flame; Her children shall rise up to bless her Seven years long was the bow Each by her sisters made bright, 4. Stormy the day of her birth: |